D-Day

Some people might be put off by the idea that searching through personal profiles online is essentially shopping for a partner. Some people might argue it is dehumanising, insulting, unnatural and removes the emotional connection required to truly fall for another human being. I am not one of those people. I am a  born hunter-gatherer shopper. I browse, compare, eliminate options until I’ve narrowed down my search to just one item that’s attractive, functional, good quality and hopefully long lasting. I imagine the different ways the new thing is going to change my life and before I tell the sales person ‘I’ll take it’, whenever I can, I try before I buy.

So you can imagine how satisfying I find internet dating.

Technically, the site I am using is not a dating site. However, any arrangement which encourages two near-strangers to turn up to a mutually agreed upon public establishment under the guise of getting to know one another and feel incredibly awkward while pretending to be the best version of themselves, is a date. Whether they’re hoping to get laid at the end of the night or not.   

When my emails with one particular member progressed to the point of meeting face to face, I thought it might be wise to tell my housemate that I was about to go out with a man I’d only seen in photographs (probably). Whose surname and residential address I didn’t know. Who could have been a murderer, rapist,  accountant or born-again Chrisitan. My housemate had been happy for me until I drew her attention to these facts. I told her that if I didn’t come home she should tell the police that I was last out with a man named B. at a pub in Surry Hills. She didn’t appreciate the suggestion I might not make it back and made me promise that on the off chance I decided to willingly spend three days straight in a sex den, I had to send her a text because if I didn’t come home, now she would worry.

My potential sex den partner was a 37 year old personal trainer with a body that matched his job. Theoretically he was not my type, I tend to go for guys who look like the front man of an indie band who’s been too bored to eat for a fortnight. That said, from his profile picture my date looked to be everybody’s type. He had these biceps and a set of abs like you see on guys in perfume and jeans campaigns. Some of his photos actually looked like modelling shots, that or he knew how to hold his iPhone to get the most flattering angle ever.

The awkward sitting across from each other is hardly worth recapping. We had beers, he had biceps, he told me he lifted heavy things to make himself bigger because he was naturally very slim… (that’s real life irony, right?).

At five past ten I found myself on the footpath in front of a closed pub listening to B. saying those seven loaded words ‘the night doesn’t have to end here’. I felt like indecision personified. Did I want to sleep with him? I felt no obligation to, that wasn’t the problem. I was wondering whether I could move past the fact that I wasn’t overly attracted to him to the fact that within the hour I could be experiencing the kind of pleasure the girls who are with the guys in those perfume and jeans campaigns appear to be experiencing.

Despite the fact that he lived within walking distance, B. had decided to ride his motorbike to the pub (apparently he’s not much of a forward planner), which created something of a logistical quandary in terms of getting the three of us, him, me and his bike back to his place. In the end, I offered to follow his directions and meet him there. I’m a walker by nature, so that suited me just fine.

I listened to his instructions, I swear I was concentrating. But it was like the time I did work experience and had to deliver a parcel to a someone’s house. The office manager gave me the directions, I nodded along and then, I’m guessing, she noticed the blank look in my eyes because she asked me to repeat them. I was an adult, I was doing work experience because no one would give me a job and I had completely tuned out. What was wrong with me? Luckily some sort of subconscious survival instinct kicked in because I managed to not only repeat the directions but also find the address and make it back to the office. In this instance on Sunday night, those same survival instincts helped me out again.

I started out in the right direction, my mind working overtime, the roar of B’s motorbike fading into the distance. Then I realised, I had no idea what the first turn off was. So I kept walking. I walked for 45 minutes until I was at my front door. I was relieved to be there, on my own, knowing that the only loving I was going to experience was the polygamous kind, ‘Big Love’ on DVD. Oh and don’t worry, I send B. an apologetic text. I don’t think there were any hard feelings.

My housemate was relieved to see me. I recapped the evening, went to my room and there, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something black and shiny scuttling around the base of my dresser.

I’ll be the first to admit that my reaction to cockroaches is girliness overblown to the point that it’s like a drag-queen explosion. I managed to get the spray and attack the damn thing, but that only resulted in it careening about the floor, drunk and more unpredictable than ever. Thankfully, my housemate does not suffer from my kind of hysteria. She responded to my pitiful shrieks and within seconds had managed to flatten the thing with a sandal while I kind of twitched and spasmed about in a corner of the room thanking her in a way that sounded more like a chant. It’s the closest I ever come to speaking in tongues. But her good samaritanism didn’t end there.

‘If you have a tissue I’ll clean that up for you.’

Which made me think of an alternate way the evening could have ended. And you know, even with the cockroach I was still happy I’d chosen my home, my DVDs and that rather than a man with abs and a motorbike, it was my housemate offering to clean up the mess. 

Internet Dating Part II: The Descent

I don’t normally consider myself a prude, but every time I open an email with an erection as an attachment I let out a little involuntary gasp. From that it should be obvious that I am no longer on RSVP searching for a soul mate. If it isn’t, I want to let you know that there are no visible penises on that particular site (although interestingly there are quite a few cocks) and that may be one of the reasons things seemed so dull and serious over there.

After my failure to attract the crème de la crème of single men who struggle to meet women offline (seriously, how good could they be anyway?) I lowered my standards, opened up my options and got down and dirty with a different kind of website as recommended by my male friend. The one I settled on advertises itself as ‘the world's largest sex & swinger personals community’ and my aim here is not so much to find a soul mate as a buddy. The special kind of buddy you call when you realise you’ve watched all the TV episodes on your hard drive and need another kind. Of hard drive.

On this website, you can send personalised emails right away and for free, so after a week I’ve had more than twice the amount of interest I had on RSVP. Sure, most of the attention I could’ve done without. I didn’t really need an invitation to watch some guy’s live masturbation show, but it’s nice to be asked. And, you know, it’s flattering that a man who can’t get any from his wife has seen my profile and thinks that I’m just the kind of girl he’d like to have on the side.

So far I haven’t paid any money to upgrade my membership which means I don’t have access to the more explicit pictures and videos on people's profiles. This limitation actually motivates me to continue to NOT invest in the site. If I’m feeling brave or curious, I can still see thumbnails of photos or videos that people have uploaded in their member activity column and at times that’s more than enough.

One guy who contacted me sounded like a really intelligent and interesting arty type. He looked cute too so I checked out his profile. In his activities column under 'New Pictures Added', there was a photo of a girl peeing into his mouth. At least I’m fairly certain that was what was happening, I couldn’t enlarge the thumbnail to confirm. I’ve heard of water sports, I know that’s not uncommon, but still. IN. HIS. MOUTH. Cheers to him for being comfortable enough with what he enjoys that he’s happy to post it up along with a headshot, a shot of his penis in some kind of a metal torture accessory and a detailed description of his personality. Normally I prefer a little mystery, but I feel like I dodged a bullet there.

I have now, almost unconsciously, developed a list of deal breakers. These help me narrow the field and weed out the needy and the greedy and the more obvious crazies. Of course they probably aren’t actually mentally unsound, just, like people who watch Two and a Half Men, not my type.

1. Cock shots: 

Call me a traditionalist, but I want to talk to you face-to-face before I see your erection. 
I don’t care if it comes to almost level with your belly button, I don’t care if it looks like premium German sausage, if there’s nothing else going for you, it’s certainly not going motivate me to get in touch. I’m also not interested in seeing photos of your penis with someone else’s vagina. I’m sure it works for some of the ladies, but all I can wonder is who was holding the camera and whether, if our bits ended up in a similar position, I would have to keep an eye out for a flash.

2. I can’t see your face: 

What are you hiding? Who are you hiding from? Sometimes there’s a good explanation; I wouldn’t want to have to worry that that misstitties101 who I’ve been sharing my whipping fantasies with for over a week is actually a smartarse from the year seven history class either. Most likely though, I’ll assume you don’t have the kind of face that looks good on webcam. That is, as my housemate would say, it resembles a smashed crab. Perhaps that’s not the case, but there are so many people online, I’m probably not going to endeavour to find out for sure.

3. An obvious inability to grasp basic spelling and grammar: 

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having certain standards for the people you intend to sleep with. For me, being able to correspond in complete sentences is as necessary as having good personal hygiene. Being a ‘layed back’ [sic] guy is no excuse for not knowing how to spell. And if you can’t spell it, then I am definitely not going to do it with you. Especially when it only has three letters. Yeah, that’s right, you and I will not be having ‘six’ any time soon.

4. Desperation: 
Don’t tell me you have to meet me NOW. I’d like to say it’s flattering, but I doubt I’m the only person you’ve emailed that message to this evening. And if you think I’m actually going to change out of my pyjamas and leave the house on a Monday night just as Man Vs. Wild is about to start to meet a total stranger, well I admire your optimism, but you’re also clearly delusional. 

At least with Bear Grylls, I know what to expect. He will without a doubt put something unconventional in his mouth, there will probably be water sports – rafting or urinating, perhaps even drinking his own urine while rafting and I can respond to his endeavours with outright horror without worrying about hurting his feelings.

In spite of my list, I’ve managed to find half a dozen or so contenders who have not yet offended my sensibilities. There's been some emailing back and forth with a couple of them, but I believe you can't really tell what someone is like until you meet them face to face. And after that? Well, maybe then I'll be ready to see an erection.

Internet Dating: Part I: Slippery Slope

It’s two weeks into 2011 and I'm thinking about having a threesome with a couple. This is not something that I set out to do this year, my list of resolutions did not go something like:

1. Learn French

2. Master touch-typing

3. Have a threesome with a married couple from Nowra

I didn’t even have something more vague like:

3. Try to be more open minded, especially when it comes to group sex situations

I should also add that I have never participated in that sort of an arrangement. My sex life, up until this point has been mostly vanilla, wait no, maybe not that plain. Maybe it’s been more like a generic brand of Neapolitan ice-cream; not exotic, but with enough variety to please some people, some of the time.   

The catalyst for this sudden change of heart (or something) was the dating website RSVP. That’s not exactly how I came into contact with my couple, I’m fairly certain RSVP only deals with the more traditional singles meeting singles scene, but it’s a slippery slope.

Between Christmas and new year I was doing the same thing as a fair portion of the population; sitting around my parents house taking advantage of their pay TV, regretting the amount of food I was eating (the ham and trifle could hardly be expected to finish themselves) and wondering what had happened to 2010. My state of mind was expertly taken advantage of by a commercial for the popular dating website and within hours I was checking out something I had previously scoffed at. Idle, weakened by an excess of food and drink and unavoidable nostalgia I was drawn to the idea of trying something new, the possibility of meeting THE ONE and the idea that next year could be different if only I’d allow myself to embrace change.

So I checked out the site, made sure I didn’t need to pay any money straight up and found enough attractive profiles to decide that joining could be worth my while. It was so easy. I settled on a pseudonym (I tried to get creative and literary but alicedowntherabbithole was cumbersome and sounded a little dirty), wrote a brief description, chose photos to crop my friends out of and before I knew it I was sending out the standard 'I'd like to get to know you, would you be interested?' messages or 'kisses'. I was internet dating.

I was instantly hooked. I loved the feeling that online I could meet anyone, someone whose path I might have never, otherwise, have crossed. I was embracing technology. I was creating a new future for myself. I wasn’t sitting around in the corner of a pub at 1AM hoping that the attractive guy in the ‘Ich Liebe Berlin’ T-shirt would talk to me, I was being proactive!

My fascination RSVP lasted a week. My obsession with Farmville had been far deeper and more enduring.

One by one I received the generic rejection ‘kisses’ (isn’t that an oxymoron) from the guys I had initiated contact with. From the attractive French multilingual man who worked in finance, from the British creative professional rocking the sunnies and stubble look in his profile pic, even from the alright-looking student whose pseudonym was that of a popular Indian curry and was a spur of the moment choice. Even he had the gall to turn me down! I tried not to take this wave of refusal to heart, I tried to respond accordingly. 

In the end I rejected everyone who had in turn made the effort to contact me. I wasn’t really interested in any of them anyway. Not enough to pay money to buy the ‘stamps’ I would need to send personal emails. Not enough to actually arrange a time and place and go out and meet up with someone I felt only the vaguest attraction to. Why should I bother with all that? I probably could strike up a conversation with one of those guys in the pub at 1AM after the hipster went home with the cute bar girl. 

For the most part, the men who contacted me seemed to be nice, normal, earnest people. For me, this was a problem. What was drawing these men to me and what was turning the ones I liked away? Did they think I was a nice, normal, earnest girl? 

So I showed my profile to a male friend. I needed a second opinion. Why were the hot, multilingual, professionally successful, intelligent and interesting men just not into me? Tactfully he suggested the problem might lie within the site rather than within me. And this was just the revelation I needed to take the next step.

To be continued...